Now, I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but it stretches credibility to think that the sabotage of the small local branch of a tiny piece of the government’s vast bureaucracy … would require the work of twelve or thirteen people.

Think about it – if you were planning to light fire to an office, would you invite ten of your best buddies to join you in your super-secret scheme? I mean, how hard can it be to sabotage this office? A little bit of kerosene, some handy work with the locks, a lighter, and (literally) boom.

But I want to congratulate Maracuchos on their efficient use of matches and gasoline. And for having a pair that most Venezuelans seem not to have. And if the act seems delinquent destruction of government property, remember what the INTI is up to. STEALING PRODUCTIVE LAND. EVICTING PRODUCERS AND THEIR EMPLOYEES. Violently, arbitrarily, with arms. No courts, no recourse, no redress. Get out now! is their policy, the Army came down upon you and you have to go.

The response was surprisingly mild, then.

Only the government is trying to make Maracuchos the butt of a kind of sick joke, because according to them it takes 11 Maracuchos to set fire to an INTI office in the wee hours of morning.

As for the Che Guevara portrait… I guess that the guy is so rotten that not even fire would have him.

Well, it’s the Metropolitan area (includes San Francisco). People from La Ca~nada, for example, are known as Ca~naderos, not maracuchos. Same thing with people from Cabimas or Los Puertos – not maracuchos. Santa Barbara is much further away than any of these towns.

Okey, it was only informal Venezuelan usage. To call people from Zulia Maracuchos.

I am well aware that Zulianos in general take exception at being called Maracuchos. Even some Marabinos, and of course, everyone from the Eastern Coast (Tiajuana, Ciudad Ojeda and Cabimas for instance).